Looking at Japanese society and culture through its language, with occasional forays into other languages.

misc

2008.09.08

As you may have noticed, I have not updated this blog in some time. I simply haven't had the time and energy, with so many other things to deal with. I did think about simply shutting down the blog, but something compells me to keep it*. In any case, I have decided to take the language theme over to Twitter! Starting today I'll be posting a Japanese word a day (or so) @mainichinihongo, which means "Japanese every day" (doh). I hope that it will be update-able and fun, so if you are a Twitter-er go ahead and friend me! My more general + food Twitter account is @bentotips - what the heck, add that me too if you like! Who knows, the Twitter posts may even revive this blog!

2008.01.10

The other day, I ran across an outstanding online language learning app/website. I hesitated to mention it here, since at the moment it's only for Japanese speakers who want to learn English. Still, you may know someone who is in that position, so here it is. It's called iKnow!.

2007.12.14

Whenever i see, in a resumé (C.V.) for example, that someone is 'fluent' in a language other than their mother tongue. I think "O RLY". Color me skeptical, but I'd say 80% to 90% of the people who have said they are fluent, really aren't according to my standards.

Some years ago when I was working in a soul-crushing job for a Japanese company, I was introduced to this young American dude in a suit who said he was "totally fluent in Japanese". I had to sit and talk to this dude for at least 10 minutes. Let me say, I understood him for about 60 seconds worth out of the 10 minutes. The rest I had to sort of extrapolate.

Eventually I gently maneuvered him into English because my head was hurting. (At least I think I was gentle. Or I may have said "Can we switch to English? My ears are bleeding." It was some time ago.)

Then there was another time when this man who a friend of mine was in love with (or, to put it another way, my friend had a man crush on the guy) brought his overly smart and slightly creepy kids to a group dinner. His daughter was seated next to me. At some point the girl (she was about 16) turned to me and started babbling. I remember staring at her blankly. Her father beamed at me, saying "Isn't her Japanese great?" I think I nodded sort of semi-consciously, not wishing to offend him or crush her spirit, or whatever. It sounded as Japanese to me as Dutch sounds German. (If someone who speaks German listens to Dutch, it almost seems understandable, like if you listen hard enough you'll eventually get it. But you never do. There's a sort of similar-but-really-different quality like that with Korean vs. Japanese too.)

There are a couple of criteria that I think anyone has to meet before they can say with total honesty and without delusion that they are fluent.

2007.12.08

Once upon a time, there was a site called i was just really very hungry. It was about food. It resided here on Typepad. The owner of the site registered the domain justhungry.com, but forgot to point it to the Typepad site until a few months after the site was born.